Here's a bit of history about real estate, and perhaps the greatest real estate purchase of all time.

If you think you have a lot of things to consider when buying a new piece of property or land, just think about what past presidents have had to deal with when they were about to buy entire states! Decisions such as these have significantly impacted the United States.

Thomas Jefferson is responsible for what is considered one of the greatest real estate deals in history: The Louisiana Purchase. On April 30, 1803, the USA purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately 4 cents per acre. The Louisiana Purchase treaty was ratified by the Senate on October 20, 1803, an action that doubled the size of the USA and allowed the country to expand westward.

As a result, several states were incorporated into the USA, including Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, most of South Dakota, and parts of North Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. In total, the amount of land that was added by the deal comes out to be 23% of the modern USA!

Because of this deal, the USA was able to expand far beyond the original borders defined by the purchase. Since then, all of the USA’s states have been purchased from foreign countries in similar manners.

Alaska is another prime example. Faced with the possibility of war from England, Russia sold Alaska to the USA. Many Americans were opposed to the decision, but many extolled its virtues of rich resources and further expansion westward.

Just think of how much development has occurred on all that land, in less than 200 years! It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

Maybe that dilapidated building you’ve been pondering doesn’t seem like such a bad deal anymore, does it? Owning a small condo and using it as a rental property doesn't seem like that big of an effort.

You see, the decisions discussed above did not come easily to the acting presidents. In fact, many of the purchases (such as the Alaska Purchase) were heavily opposed. The truth is, these properties (states and land masses) were bought as a gamble. Several ethical issues were brought up, both personal and Constitutional, in addition to international tensions that could have resulted in war.

When you buy real estate, you won’t inadvertently declare war on a foreign country, but you might be faced with your own set of conflicts and doubts that might prevent you from reaching a decision.

The point is this: you can’t run away from your fears and worries. Instead, you need to confront them and try to resolve these matters. If you never take a risk, you’ll always look back and wonder, “What if?”